What Doesn't Kill Us
by tsukikitty
Summary: Neku hates himself - absolutely hates himself - for not being there. For not being fast enough. Strong enough. Smart enough, suspicious enough, HUMAN enough to get there before she did and erase that stupid shark. NekuxRhyme. Lots of swearing.


I've been delving deeper into the unknown depths of NekuxRhyme lately. I'm rather enjoying it.

So, have some angst. :)

Disclaimer: Blah blah blah characters TWEWY game not mine yeah. All that jazz.

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What Doesn't Kill Us

- Ch. 1 -

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AUGH.

Neku hates himself - absolutely fucking _hates_ himself - for not being there. For not being _fast_ enough. _Strong_ enough. _Smart_ enough and _suspicious_ enough and goddamn fucking _human_ enough to get there before she did and erase that stupid shark.

It was right there - _right there!_ - and he couldn't even be bothered to notice it. Everyone should have noticed it. Everyone should have noticed or wondered or gotten _some_ little inkling in their thick-padded skulls as to how fucking _suspicious_ the mission was. _Everyone_ should have noticed that it was quite obviously one big trap brewed up by those Composer-ass-kissing Reapers to get them erased. But, alas, once again their failure to properly think about the situation at hand had led them straight into yet another fucked up piece of hell. And Neku, for some Godforsaken inexplicable reason, is feeling at the moment like it's all completely his own damn fault.

He, however, being the stoic, emotionless bastard he is, is completely incapable of showing any signs of remorse/sadness/guilt/ANYTHING. Instead he just stands there with his face buried into his collar - he's _always _doing that, hiding behind his collar like it's some sort of shield that's supposed to protect him from the rest of the world - biting off bitter lies that, somewhere in the back of the swarming whirlpool of his mind, are the twisted misconceptions of already blurred out truths, taking bullet after bullet of verbal abuse from Shiki as she cries and screams at him about things that he's already been telling himself for the past God knows how long. Then, he's yelling right back at her because quite frankly he doesn't know what else to do and he's so angry and confused at nothing in particular right now that he could just punch himself in the gut.

And then, just like that, the day is over, and he's sent into that insufferable half-second of blackness again before "waking up" in Tipsy Tose Hall as another dazed scene of this unending dream begins.

In that oh-so-brief flash of darkness in between Days, Neku finds himself being crushed under the weight of his swirling, jumbled thoughts and feelings, and everything just hits him - BAM - right then, and it makes him want to scream out into the soul-shattering silence of the world at large about how useless he is and how fucked up this is and how he just doesn't know what the _hell_ to do because he was _right there _and it was _right there_ and he couldn't save her and now Rhyme is gone for good, erased, because he just _couldn't_.

And he swears to God he's crying - downright bawling his eyes out and sobbing like a little kid who's just lost his favorite toy - but before he knows it his eyes are open and they're dry and he's looking out at the city of Shibuya again through the invisible glass that had four days since been shoved into the deathly shadow of his lingering life.

_Fuck_ this day.

_Fuck_ this week.

And _fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _FUCK this whole twisted goddamned Game.

-

Neku groans wearily, momentarily forgetting the heart-shredding mind fuckery of yesterday, and steps out into the light, preparing to resume this freakish nightmare. (Not that it was ever really paused, because he's long since figured out that there are no buttons - no "pause" or "fast-forward" or "rewind" - in this blatant disregard for human life that he's been somehow dragged into.)

"Nngh... Where am I?"

"You awake?"

Shiki.

"The mission's not here yet... Looks like we start at Tipsy Tose Hall today." She fidgets uncomfortably and moves a hand to rest lightly on her face, _again_, as she always does when she's nervous or anxious or straight-out lying through her actually-belonging-to-Eri fucking teeth. "So, um... sorry about yesterday."

Ah. Right.

Yesterday.

Images play back in Neku's mind as if on a highlight reel from some awful horror film with impossibly realistic effects: Towa, Beat, Rhyme, shark, Rhyme...

_'Rhyme...'_

He lowers his gaze to the ground. Fuck it.

"... Well, right now, we need to focus on the mission."

"Yeah..."

His mind is still reeling and he's about ready to pour a gallon of gasoline onto the fucked up blaze that is his throbbing head, but he just stands there in his usual stone-cold pose, hands stuffed into shorts pockets, eyes shadowed by his unruly bangs, and lies in silent waiting for the next errand from hell to arrive and send them against their wills to some new Godforsaken place to risk their second chances at living again.

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Well? Ready to slit your veins open yet? :D

Reviews are greatly loved and appreciated, as always.


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